NVIDIA RTX 4070 vs NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti
Which graphics card is better for running local language models? Here is how the NVIDIA RTX 4070 (12 GB) compares against the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti (11 GB) in real memory headroom, supported model architectures, and generation speed.
NVIDIA RTX 4070
- Memory Bandwidth: 504 GB/s (GDDR6X 192-bit)
- Fits fully in VRAM: 33 popular models
- Power Draw (TDP): 200W
- Largest recommended (Q4): 14B
NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti
- Memory Bandwidth: 616 GB/s (GDDR6 352-bit)
- Fits fully in VRAM: 31 popular models
- Power Draw (TDP): 250W
- Largest recommended (Q4): 8B
The AI Local Check Verdict: Which GPU should you buy for AI?
The Classic Headroom vs Speed Trade-off: The NVIDIA RTX 4070 has 1 GB more VRAM, allowing it to fit larger models that cannot run locally on the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti.
However, the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti has a higher memory bandwidth (616 GB/s vs 504 GB/s). For models that comfortably fit in 11 GB VRAM, the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti will generate tokens roughly 22.0% faster. Choose the NVIDIA RTX 4070 if you prioritize model size flexibility, or the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti if you prioritize token generation speed on models up to 11 GB.
Models that fit on NVIDIA RTX 4070, but NOT on NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti
These models run entirely in GPU VRAM on the NVIDIA RTX 4070, but require slow system RAM offload on the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti:
| Model | Size | Downloads | NVIDIA RTX 4070 | NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unsloth/gpt-oss-20b-GGUF | 20.91B | 615,143 | Fits in VRAM | Offload (Slow) |
| unsloth/flint-GGUF | 39.79B | 331,924 | Fits in VRAM | Offload (Slow) |